The Fallen London team has something in the works for BioWare, which should be very good news if you like story-based games.

Failbetter Games and BioWare are working on something together. If you haven't heard of Failbetter, it's the creative force behind Fallen London, an interactive-fiction browser game with some brilliant writing. If you haven't heard of BioWare, I don't believe you; the studio has created several of the most memorable stories in gaming. And now they're coming together in some kind of partnership? You should probably be excited - Failbetter certainly is.

"Keeping secrets doesn't come naturally to us," Failbetter co-founder Alexis Kennedy writes in a blog post that spills the beans on this new development. "But for the last year, on and off, we've been working in absolute secrecy on a project for a much larger company. When we've got quiet for no obvious reason, it's because we've been heads-down on this." Though Kennedy's enthusiasm is palpable, the nature of the project is still under wraps.

After the success of Fallen London, Failbetter launched the StoryNexus system for others to create their own interactive worlds. Could there be a Mass Effect or Dragon Age game in development using that system? Or something new entirely? We can't do much more than wonder at this point, but whatever's coming, expect it to have some rock-solid writing.

Of course, both studios will be reaping the benefits of this project. "I'm just glad to see BioWare getting to share our limelight," Kennedy tweeted. "It's hard for them being such an obscure niche developer."

Interesting news, I'm actually hoping it will be more along the lines of Bioware doing a new IP based on "Fallen London" or some Failbetter's other works though, rather than Failbetter making interactive fiction based on Bioware IPs. After both "Dragon Age 2" and "Mass Effect 3" I've kind of lost a lot of faith in Bioware's writing quality and I'm sort of hoping they realize this and are bringing someone in that is somewhat free of the taint of EA's involvement to help balance them out, perhaps letting them "contract out" certain things will cause EA to mess things up less somehow. That said I imagine it's most likely that what we're actually about to see is one of EA's lovecraftian tentacles reach out and ensnare Failbetter before it fully has a chance to bloom, dragging it screaming down into the murk before it can ever achieve anything lasting for the mainstream... pre-emptively snuffing a potential light of hope. :)

if bioware do make a game in fallen london i do wonder how they would possibly do it. after all conversation is just as important if not more so than combat and that invite to afternoon tea minigame would be a bitch to complete

Which Bioware studio though... The one that makes Dragon Ages? The one that makes Mass effects? The one that makes Star Warses? or perhaps some kind of newly acquired EA studio with the Bioware name slapped on it?

Interested, but very sceptical of it being anything at all fantastic.

Edit:Bioware Edmonton apparently! So my thought is that it will most likely be a browser game to accompany the release of Dragon age III.

This is what we're doing, here's the premise, this is what we're hoping for. They're more interested in doing 'exclusivity' deals for trailers than anything. Yes, I find that to be immature for an 'industry' and backwards.